Moving from McMansions to Earthships:

The Quest for Sustainable Housing in Australia

Building a house out of hundreds of tonnes of dirt

and old tyres might sound like a strange place to

call home, but the ideas behind Earthships make

them truly more than just a humble abode. For

the past three years, Martin Freney, PhD student

at the School of Architecture, Landscape

Architecture and Urban Design has been knocking

some sense into the current eco-friendly housing

market through his research on these literally out-

of-this-world homes called Earthships.

So, what is an Earthship?

In a nutshell, Martin describes an Earthship as the

ultimate self-sufficient home that provides and

stores all your electricity, catches and treats its own water and doesn’t require any heating or cooling. Made from

recycled materials such as tyres, bottles, aluminium cans or even salvaged sheet metal, living in an Earthship means

you can completely disconnect yourself from the grid. And those bills. Its gently contoured walls are usually rendered

in adobe or cement, cleverly concealing the choice of materials to be as conservative or kooky as you prefer. These

homes also use an indoor greenhouse to grow food and filter water for further use like flushing toilets. It pushes

solar passive design to the extreme (all glazing is north-facing) to modulate comfortable indoor temperatures year-

round.

Far removed from conventional brick and mortar,

timber-frame homes, Martin’s PhD at the

University of Adelaide is testing the theory that the

Earthship’s thermal performance stands at the top

of the sustainable housing ladder. Basically, does

all that compacted dirt in tyres actually mean that

it performs better energy-wise than any other

house we build in Australia? So far, Martin’s

research is pointing to ‘yes’.

Sounds like a magic house, right? Well, not exactly.

Martin is a firm believer that many of our current

problems in the home (remember that last

electricity bill?) and on our planet can simply be

solved by good housing design. The creator of the Earthship, architect Michael Reynolds did exactly that by

developing flexible designs where substantial parts of the home can be owner-built, without specialised skills. Many

Earthships come together in approximately five or six weeks, and are constructed by a group of volunteers, as Martin

has discovered through the enthusiasm of volunteers pitching in on his own Earthship build in the Adelaide hills.

Martin experienced the Earthship’s remarkable thermal

performance during his month-long summer internship

at the Earthship ‘headquarters’, the Greater World

Community in Taos, New Mexico. But it was Martin’s

last trip in winter that left the largest impression. “It was

freezing cold outside – around minus 5°C. You walk into

the Earthship’s greenhouse and it’s 30°C, then into your

living room which is 20°C. It’s incredible that those

temperatures can be achieved with no heater.”

If Martin could advertise his research on a billboard, it

would depict the Earthship greenhouse and living room

each with their comfy climes, contrasted against a chilly

outdoor temperature. And bare the slogan ‘No heater. No cooler. No problems!’ Paired with an approximate annual

energy bill of $50 (from using gas for boosting solar hot water and cooking), it does sound like common sense.

Yet why aren’t we all building environmentally friendly homes in Australia?

Considering Australians continue to build the biggest houses in the world, and pay large percentages of our hard-

earned wage towards our mortgages, heating, and cooling, it comes as no surprise that we are in a bit of a pickle.

(And we might need to do a little more than make sure we turn off the lights when we leave the room).

So why aren’t we busy constructing energy-efficient homes, rather than our oversized resource guzzlers? Perhaps

our hesitance to build eco-homes lies in the

common perception that sustainable buildings cost

more to build? In the recent report ‘Sustainability:

Who cares? A property industry survey’ released by

architecture and design firm Woods Bagot, one third

of respondents believe that sustainable buildings

cost 6 – 10% more, when in reality it is a steadily

diminishing premium of 2 – 4%. Martin considers

Earthships or other eco-homes to be potentially

cheaper, especially when your friends and family get

involved in the construction. When the ongoing

running costs (for heating and cooling) are factored

in, any additional expenses during construction are

quickly paid back.

Martin believes our slow progress with eco-building is more about a lack of awareness of building alternatives and

the benefits of living in an eco-friendly home, rather than unwillingness. “If you don’t know what the options are you

don’t have a choice. It’s an education issue. People are stuck in what the building companies churn out. No one’s

screaming about it, but they should be.” Martin says.

The eco-friendly housing antidote

Martin believes the remedy to our ‘resource-

dependency-itis’ starts in disconnecting from

the grid, and reconnecting to our

surroundings. “I’m not saying that building an

eco-home means you can totally escape, but

if you build a smaller house, it’s going to be

cheaper as it uses less material. If you build a

house that collects and treats its own water

and generates all of its electricity, then it’s

going to help you pay off your mortgage

quicker.” says Martin.

This doesn’t mean that we have to move into

shoe-box sized caves to save a buck. An

averaged 3 bedroom Earthship is a roomy

140m2 – 200m2, pretty good considering it can even grow your food indoors! (That’s more than I can say for my

house which just grows mould and a decidedly unhappy ‘Happy Plant’). And it goes further than pure economical

savings...Imagine living in a home that you are connected to, not the grid. You control it through your behaviour to

make it run effectively, rather than the home being connected to distant, abstract resources that seem to be limited

only by your ability to pay the utility bills.

“Put yourself in an Earthship, or any off-grid home and you start paying attention, or else you won’t be able to turn

on the TV because you left the lights on and drained your batteries. It’s that simple. We have to conserve resources,

and we’ve forgotten how to do that.” Martin says.

Thankfully, living in an off-grid home doesn’t mean we have to sacrifice lifestyle- it’s more a matter of adapting our

collection and usage of resources like water and electricity. We can still enjoy our mod-cons like high-speed Internet

and wide-screen TV, just without taxing our planet and hip-pockets. “An interesting thing about the Earthship is the

user behaviour, you have to actually learn how to sail it as such.” Martin says. In fact, owning a well-designed,

sustainable home with minimal utility bills could even mean that you don’t have to head off to work so often.

Building an eco-friendly home in an urban Australian environment

Martin grew up in a regular home in the suburbs, which didn’t have any particularly eco-friendly credentials, but he

did draw some inspiration from his family beach house. It was oriented north to let the sun through in winter, and

shaded by vines in summer. Martin began his journey into sustainable design after completing a permaculture

course in the late nineties through The Food Forest in South Australia. Since then, Martin has built his own eco-

friendly straw bale home in the Adelaide Hills. So what advice does Martin have for people who would like to build

or renovate in the suburbs?

“The low hanging fruit is facing your house north (in the southern hemisphere), and ensure you have the appropriate

eaves to shade your house in summer, and let the sun in during winter. Other beneficial options are to install a solar

hot water heater and solar panels, and double glaze where you can.” says Martin. A relatively simple option is to

build your house ‘reverse brick veneer’, putting the bricks on the inside of your home, then insulating and cladding

with materials such as weatherboard or rendered blueboard on the outside. This clever reversal of traditional

materials means your house will be better insulated from the fluctuations of outside temperatures.

Michael Reynolds has also begun designing a two-storey Earthship for more compact environments, altering the

‘earth-berm’ and insulation, and thus the need for long, north-facing blocks. Martin is encouraged that someday we

may see Earthships ‘landing’ in the ’burbs.

Until then, Martin will be completing his PhD, extending his organic fruit and vegetable garden using permaculture

design principles, and holding workshops at his Earthship, which he plans to open as a bed and breakfast. All

between building on his research, pitching in on a local Earthship construction in Kinglake, Victoria, before moving

onto potential projects in Sydney and Vanuatu. Sounds like a man on an Earth-bound mission.

Words: Lauren Grantham

Online Media Team

Faculty of the Professions

lauren.grantham@adelaide.edu.au

This article provides an overview of sustainable houses in Australia, with a particular focus on Earthship homes. For further information on Martin Freney’s PhD and the School of Architecture, Landscape Architecture and Urban Design, please visit The University of Adelaide